SIMON Alexander produced a commanding performance to win Southend Wheelers’ annual club road race championships.

Alexander set a blistering pace from the start at Redbridge Cycle Centre, in Hainault, on a hot but windy day.

He broke from the main chasing bunch of Ben Willy, George Hannah, Graham Pearl, Mike Knott and Robin Bevan.

And by the final third of the race Alexander had lapped the entire field of more than 40 riders to secure the victory.

Graham Pearl upped the pace ensuring that he would go on to take fastest veteran of the day whilst George Hannah sprinted clear of Ben Willy to obtain second place overall and second Junior with Ben placed third.

The second event of the day saw time trial specialist Jenny Patience and Jan Harvey break free from the field early on.

Between them they took advantage of their break, working together before Patience applied more pressure ensuring that she went on to gain first place from Harvey. Third place went to Emma Curtis.

The following event was the novices and all-comers event which attracted 18 riders. The race started at a frantic pace with a breakaway group of eight riders pulling away from the remainder of the rest of the field, driven on by father and son novices Bruce and James Gander.

Working together they broke away from this break with around five laps to go and in the final stages James Gander pulled away to win comfortably from dad Bruce. Wheeler Peter Swanwick put in a strong ride to finish in third place.

The final race of the day and new to the championships was the ‘Devil’, a sprint elimination race around the short top circuit.

Following the opening lap, after each subsequent lap the last-placed rider is eliminated until there is only one rider left, guaranteeing an event which not only gains speed as it goes on, but a test of the riders’ ability to look and maintain position whilst expending as little energy as possible.

In a reversal of the podium places from the main race, Ben Willy extracted some revenge over George Hannah by claiming second place but had no answer to Simon Alexander who won his second race of the day.

While the road race members were competing in the club championships, the club’s time trial specialists were in Newmarket competing in the Eastern Counties Cycling Association, Zak Carr Memorial 10-mile Championship Scratch Time Trial.

A strong north easterly wind made the course very fast on the outward leg but extremely difficult for the competitors on the return leg.

But the conditions did not stop Denise Kemp from achieving a life-time personal best of 25mins 55secs, beating her previous best of 26mins 42secs set in 1982 that still stands as a Juvenile Girls’ Club Record, while veteran Mick Hennessy finished in a time of 24mins 26secs.